Crusading former Pentagon chief says nuke danger is growing

WASHINGTON (AP) — Late in a life lived unnervingly near the nuclear abyss, William J. Perry is on a mission to warn of a “real and growing danger” of nuclear doom.

The 88-year-old former defense secretary is troubled by the risks of catastrophe from the very weapons he helped develop. Atop his list: a nuclear terror attack in a major U.S. city or a shooting war with Russia that, through miscalculation, turns nuclear. A terrorist attack using a nuclear bomb or improvised nuclear device could happen “any time now – next year or the year after,” he said in an interview with reporters earlier this month.

Hagel Said to Be Stepping Down as Defense Chief Under Pressure

The purge continues.

WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel is stepping down under pressure, the first cabinet-level casualty of the collapse of President Obama’s Democratic majority in the Senate and the struggles of his national security team amid an onslaught of global crises.

The president, who is expected to announce Mr. Hagel’s resignation in a Rose Garden appearance on Monday, made the decision to ask his defense secretary — the sole Republican on his national security team — to step down last Friday after a series of meetings over the past two weeks, senior administration officials said.

The officials described Mr. Obama’s decision to remove Mr. Hagel, 68, as a recognition that the threat from the Islamic State would require a different kind of skills than those that Mr. Hagel was brought on to employ. A Republican with military experience who was skeptical about the Iraq war, Mr. Hagel came in to manage the Afghanistan combat withdrawal and the shrinking Pentagon budget in the era of budget sequestration.

SAVAGE: ‘We may be forced to attack North Korea before they attack us’

North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un is now threatening to wipe out American cities through the use of nuclear weapons.

Dr. Savage ponders the motivation behind these threats, contemplates possible U.S. responses and explains how Asian “honor culture” might be influencing Kim Jong Un’s behavior.

“North Korea’s leader has backed himself into a corner,” explained Michael Savage, noting:

If you know anything about Asian culture, and the concept of “saving face,” if the boss of North Korea has approved a merciless nuke attack on the U.S., then he has to do something to save face.

Israel Loses Patience with Obama, Starts Countdown to Unilateral Decision on Nuclear Iran

Differences between Israel and the United States over a nuclear Iran brought relations to rock bottom this week. Israeli officials frankly and openly criticized the Obama administration out of a sense of being left in the dark and cornered by a campaign of misinformation.

Most of all, they were irked by the way the one-day Istanbul meeting between the six world powers (P5+1) and Iran on April 14 was held up by Washington and Europe as a constructive and successful exercise because Tehran had deigned to keep on talking in Baghdad on May 23, five weeks hence.

In fact, that was the sum-total of its success.

Then, they discovered that, before Istanbul, the US and Iran had reached certain understandings in private, bilateral contacts in Paris – revealed here for the first time. Those understandings rendered the get-together in Turkey a mere formality and were designed to predetermine the “agreed” outcome in Baghdad, i.e. more “progress” and a third session scheduled for the second half of August.

Therefore, unbeknownst to Israel, Washington had prepared the script for the formal negotiating track well in advance. It set out a leisurely timeline affording Iran time to produce more highly-enriched uranium and to tuck its bomb-making nuclear facilities away in fortified underground hideaways, safe from any Israeli attempt to destroy them.

Israel brings out big guns to shoot down false reports

This was the “freebie” to which Prime MinisterBinyamin Netanyahu referred on April 15, after a long conversation with visiting US Senator Joe Lieberman. He accused the US and the world powers of granting Iran a free five-week run to continue uranium enrichment undisturbed up until May 23 in Baghdad. He pointedly mentioned the US separately.

The point was taken instantaneously – distance being no object.

The US president used the press conference winding up the Western Hemisphere summit in Cartagena, Colombia, to retort: “The notion that somehow we’ve given something away or a ‘freebie’ would indicate Iran has gotten something. In fact, they’ve got some of the toughest sanctions that they’re going to be facing coming up in just a few months if they don’t take advantage of these talks.”

It is precisely on this point that Israeli officials felt they were being misled.

For some weeks, Israeli officials have been fighting a rearguard action to fend off the false assertions leaked to the US media. One is that Netanyahu promised President Obama that he would not order an attack on Iran before the November 2012 presidential election. Another, that Israel lacks the military capability to destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Obama did not get the last word. On Tuesday, April 17, Jerusalem brought out its big guns to rebut what is seen there as a tissue of falsehoods, while also bringing some rare clarity to its intentions.

Three figures in the prime minister’s confidence on the Iranian issue offered revealing statements within hours of each other.

Israel reverts to an implacable front on a nuclear Iran

Defense Minister Ehud Barak led off by demanding a clear-cut outcome from the talks between the six world powers and Iran – quite simply, the discontinuation of Iran’s nuclear program. The bargaining must not drag on for months. Both these demands, voiced in a morning radio interview, were at odds with the Obama strategy for Iran. Barak went on to echo Netanyahu’s charge that the five-week interval between sessions had rewarded Iran with extra time for developing its nuclear capabilities.

Barak then set off for Washington to meet Defense Secretary Leon Panetta.

The disenchantment coloring his and the prime minister’s comments was rooted, DEBKA-Net-Weekly reports, in their discovery that the “1,000 formula” agreed between US and Israeli officials had not been put on the table at Istanbul.

This formula (first revealed by debkafile on April 9) would have let Iran kept 1,000 centrifuges for enriching uranium to the low 3.5 percent grade, while stocking no more than 1,000 kilograms. Its 20 percent uranium would be exported.

Barak’s words indicated that since the Americans had ditched this formula, Israel too had withdrawn its concession on enrichment and reverted to an all-or-nothing stance.

The former Israel military intelligence MI chief, Maj. Gen. (res) Amos Yadlin came next.

“I don’t think that if Iran has a nuclear bomb it will rush to drop it on Israel,” he said. “But Israel can’t afford to risk letting a nation not only seeking, but actively preparing for, its destruction, attain a nuclear weapon.”

Dep. PM Ya’alon: Iran will have a dirty bomb in 2012

Yadlin’s point was that Israel cannot afford to subscribe to the Obama administration’s willingness to live with a nuclear-capable Iran so long as it stops at the threshold of a final decision to use the resources and technology in its power for actually building a bomb.

In ascending order of resonance, the loudest and toughest decibels came from the third speaker, Deputy Prime Minister Moshe Yaalon, who is also minister for strategic affairs.

He made six telling remarks in a television interview Tuesday afternoon:

1. Israel no longer believes the Obama administration.

2. “On the Iranian issue, the US and Israel are not in the same boat.”

3. By the end of the year, Iran will have a dirty bomb. This was the first time a senior Israeli figure has confirmed that Iran is building dirty bombs on the way to completing its nuclear weapons program.

Three hours later, Tehran, which avidly picks up on every word spoken or printed by the “Zionists,” announced the creation of a new “Crisis Management Center for Nuclear and Radiation Accidents,” to be headed by its Atomic Energy Organization’s director, Dr. Fereydoon Abbasi.

Announcing the appointment, Iran’s civil defense chief Gen. Gholam Reza Jalali said:

“Radiation defense will be carried out at national and provincial levels and includes confronting pollution, monitoring threats, treating the injured, cleaning polluted areas, disseminating information and decreasing threats as well as enhancing the level of preparedness, organizing and creating proper mechanisms for times of crisis and holding drills and public training and information dissemination.”

This sounded very much as though Iran was getting ready for an Israeli strike on its stock of dirty bombs after revealing their discovery.

Israel is fed up with Washington’s procrastination

4. Iran will be able to build a nuclear weapon any time between April 2013 and 36 months thereafter.

5. Israel does not accept President Obama’s demand to wait before striking Iran until the end of 2012, i.e. after the US presidential election. According to Ya’alon, Israel was assured that if in 2013 it still finds it necessary to go to war on Iran’s nuclear program, the Americans might undertake the initiative.

Asked by the interviewer if the US president was cynical enough to give his reelection precedence over the threat of a nuclear Iran, the Israeli minister answered with a curt “Yes.”

6. The stalling on an Israeli decision on military action is over. After the Baghdad talks of May 23, Israel will “review its steps,” said Ya’alon.

This was the first time a competent Israeli figure, a member of the top decision-making level, had mentioned dates in connection with a decision about launching an attack on Iran’s nuclear program. He would not have spoken without the authority of Prime Minister Netanyahu.

DEBKA-Net-Weekly‘s sources in Jerusalem say that within 15 minutes of the interview, telephones were ringing off the hook in Jerusalem with urgent demands for “clarifications” from the White House, the State Department and the Pentagon.

But clarifications were really unnecessary. Israel’s message was crystal clear: We are fed up with being kept in the dark; we don’t trust American diplomatic maneuvers to stop a nuclear Iran; and we’re getting ready to make our own decisions.

The most radical US maneuver – a major concession to Iran – was still to come, as will be revealed in a separate article in this issue.

Full article: Israel Loses Patience with Obama, Starts Countdown to Unilateral Decision on Nuclear Iran (DEBKAfile)

Iran Crisis Heats Up

It is difficult to say whether sanctions are working. Iran has not abandoned its nuclear program, and is probably receiving under-the-table assistance from China and/or North Korea. In all probability sanctions will not work. As for the feasibility of an Israeli strike, in terms of distance to the target and Iranian defenses, there is plenty of uncertainty. Nobody knows whether a strike of this kind would succeed or not. Given the international condemnation of Israel that would result, and the possible loss of U.S. support, the Iranians might secretly wish for an attack (provided it fails).

Given the consequences to the world economy (if the Strait of Hormuz is closed, even for a short time), it is not in the U.S. national interest for Israel to bomb Iran. While an Iranian nuclear arsenal would pose a potential threat to the United States, it would not be the only such threat. Russia and China already have nuclear arsenals aimed at America. What is more frightening to the Americans is a war in the Persian Gulf with a constricted flow of oil. In light of this, it is not surprising that President Obama and Defense Secretary Panetta have both warned the Israelis against a preventive strike in the past. This makes more recent statements by Panetta suspect, adding weight to the theory that U.S. and Israeli officials are attempting to intimidate Iran with tough talk.

Some Israeli strategists believe there is no choice. Israel will have to accept the reality of Iranian nuclear power. Therefore, they argue, Israel must rely on deterrence. Besides this, there is only one country that would profit by an Israeli attack on Iran. That country is Russia. First, because a closure of the Strait of Hormuz would mean that Russian oil exports would generate vast profits for the Kremlin. Yet the Russian government does not enjoy popular support at the moment. If Putin is replaced in the upcoming elections, Russia might be in a stronger position (or maybe not). But for now, massive anti-government protests in Moscow makes Iran unsure of Russia’s help. All these factors may lead the Iranians to short-term concessions.

Full article: Iran Crisis Heats Up (JR Nyquist)